fade to grey
by Empatheia
Summary: -Hei x Misaki- Two years after the fact, she's still chasing him in her dreams.


**A/N: **Written after the finale of the show, because while it was lovely and perfect and everything it needed to be, it didn't satisfy my craving for this pairing at all (if anything, it made it worse). So here you are. Hope you enjoy this. :)

**xxxxx**

_**fade to grey**_

**xxxxx**

_Well, you can't help who you love._

-Huang

She still chases him in her dreams.

It doesn't surprise her. It's always been an unfortunate tendency of hers to dwell on unresolved mysteries until time greys them out or a new one, bright with the prospect of a possible solution, distracts her. Unfortunate, because such unsolveable mysteries are commonplace with her chosen occupation, and thus she has had many sleepless nights.

What does surprise her is that she's still having dreams about him two years after the fact.

No other mystery has ever lasted so long. Because of that, she wonders if perhaps she is a little bit in love with him. Stupid, illogical, unbefitting of one in her position, but there it is.

There are moments her mind has run over so often they seem almost crystallized, more perfect that they possibly could have been while actually happening: hitting baseballs at midnight while waiting for impossible stars, wearing costumes in a stone garden, a masked rescue straight out of the storybooks. Remembering them never gets old for her. They make her smile and clasp her hands to her chest every single time like a high school girl with a silly, pubescent crush.

Kirihara Masaki is a logical woman. She does not have crushes. She certainly isn't stupid enough to fall for someone she _knows_ has been lying to her all along.

And yet, and yet.

If it isn't love, then what is it?

xxxxx

He pretends to them that he's only avoiding her to avoid unnecessary questions about the nature of the Syndicate.

It's not precisely a lie, but it's also far from the truth.

Yin knows. It seems to delight her-- though she never expresses anything of the sort, he can tell-- to inform him of the woman's whereabouts at random times. "On the Yamanote Line, currently passing through the third Ikebukuro stop," she says, seeing through a nearby public water fountain. "1-7-13 Marunouchi, Chiyoda-ku," from a dripping faucet.

He tells her over and over again that the information is of no use to him, but Yin is uncharacteristically persistent. There is something about the situation that she cannot let go of. Hei knows her too well to think she will explain it to him if he asks, so he simply ignores her when she does it.

Maybe someday she'll give up.

He has other things to focus on, like survival.

The new apartment is not nearly as interesting as the last one. He misses it sometimes, but enjoys the fact that no one who knew 'Li Shengshun' can find him here, on the other side of the city. This apartment is faceless, unremarkable, full of single company workers who go elsewhere for their entertainment and only return here to sleep.

It's perfect. However-- and this is something Hei will never say out loud-- it is also lonely. The Syndicate won't find him here for some time, but only because he makes no human contact with anyone who might remember him. He shops at grocery stores an hour from the apartment, different ones every time, to avoid being remembered by full-time cashiers. He does not go for walks in the daylight. He does not go out to bars, or make small talk with fellow passengers on the train. He is a ghost, forgettable and momentary within the frenetic glare of city lights and billboards.

His hair is longer now, and he has forsaken his trusty green jacket and jeans for a grey coat and black slacks. He looks little like his old self.

Precautions.

He wonders sometimes if she would recognize him if she saw him now.

xxxxx

His hair is longer, his clothing different, and she can't see his face from this angle, but she knows it's him instantly.

Something about the unassuming slant of his back coupled with the coiled, hidden power of a professional assassin-- she's been trained to recognize those, after all-- lights him up from three blocks away like there's a giant red sign painted on his coat. She's also been looking for that very back for a very, very long time. The details have never faded from her mind.

Without pausing to question herself as to if this is wise, she runs across the busy crosswalk, slipping through the crowd with the ease of long practice as an officer of the law. She knows now that a straight line is not always the fastest way from point A to point B when there are people involved.

"Li-kun!" she cries instinctively, though she knows now that it is only an alias. She doesn't know his real name-- if he even has one-- and Li is the name of the person she wants to find.

His spine stiffens almost imperceptably and he pretends not to have heard her. She's had too many long years of noticing such subtle signs in suspects to be fooled, however, and continues to run. Her breath shortens, her forehead begins to sweat. He is only walking, but somehow the distance between them isn't shrinking.

Kirihara redoubles her efforts, zig-zagging her way through the human maze. So close, so close, she can almost feel the heavy cloth of his coat beneath her fingers, can almost hear his voice, can almost smell the generic soap he uses on his pale, miraculously unmarked skin.

As though sensing her approach, he takes a casual right into an alleyway and vanishes.

She nearly weeps with frustration, knowing beyond a doubt that she's lost him now. All she will find when she turns the corner is an armful of abandoned grocery bags lying on the cement. He will be far and away, sweeping through the air on his wires like some sort of mythical hero of the night.

At last, she reaches the alley and leans against the wall, feeling disgracefully out of shape.

For a moment, her conviction of what she should be seeing super-imposes an image of itself over reality, and she sees only a spill of white plastic and fresh vegetables.

Then her eyes catch up, there are arms around the bags, and she is standing in the dark with her dreams.

xxxxx

He's still not sure why he isn't running. It would be wise to get away, as far away from her curious, questioning eyes as possible, but his feet aren't cooperating.

The alley is dark, but he can see her perfectly well.

Her hair is in disarray, doubtless from chasing him through the evening streets while in full formal office dress. Her forehead is damp. Her breath is coming hard. She is so present and human that he can hardly assimilate the reality of her in this moment-- she seems almost surreal, something he has conjured from memory rather than an actual person standing in front of him.

"Li-kun," she gasps.

He wonders disjointedly what she will say next, what deep and painful question she will ask. Since she recognized him so easily, she must have been thinking about him in the two years since he'd seen her last, and if she has been thinking about him, she has also been thinking about the circumstances surrounding him. The Gate. The Syndicate. The Saturn System and the moral dilemma that came with it. She must be wanting explanations, and he can't risk giving them to her. They'd kill her without a second thought if they believed she knew anything valuable.

"Are you hungry?" she asks.

She is smiling.

Hei has not dreamed in years, but he remembers them, and finds himself wondering if he is in one now.

"My treat," she says.

xxxxx

And that is how she has found herself in a seedy backstreet ramen joint with the man-- quite literally-- of her dreams.

It is a very strange feeling.

His appetite hasn't changed. She finds herself glad of her promotion and the raise that had come with it as the pile of empty dishes stacks up steadily beside him. It's like the food goes straight through a portal in his stomach to somewhere else entirely.

It is odd how comfortable she feels.

Every moment they have spent together in the past has been under false pretences on at least one of their parts, both on occasion. And yet, now, with all the lies and secrecy rendered useless and stripped away, she doesn't feel she is eating with a stranger. Even if the name and past and circumstances have all been lies, she somehow doesn't think _he_ has been. The person next to her now is the same person who was with her then.

She doesn't know what to say, but oddly, neither does she feel she has to say anything.

The ramen is cheap. It is rich and salty on her tongue and fills her up.

Misaki is content.

xxxxx

It takes nearly an hour for Hei to place his mood.

When he finally does, his eyes widen and he pauses, chopsticks arrested halfway between bowl and mouth, noodles dripping loudly and unnoticed. He has not felt this way in almost longer than he can remember. It is unsettling. It makes him want to run. It makes him want to run very far and very fast.

He feels human.

Vulnerable, open, fragile, warm... he doesn't know what to do with himself. After he finishes eating he smiles at the policewoman and thanks for the meal, and from that point on he flies completely blind. He has no plan for how the next few minutes of his life will go. He doesn't know what to expect. There is no escape route plotted point-by-point in his mind in case of an emergency.

The sense of immediacy is disquieting.

He is so accustomed to pretending to be a Contractor that being human feels unnatural. A thought comes unbidden to his mind-- to some, that fact might be seen as a tragedy.

It is his life. He hardly thinks of his own circumstances in such maudlin terms.

And yet, now that he really thinks about it, it _is_ a little bit sad that he bears the Contractor's curse of loneliness and detachment without the dispassion of the Contractor's logical thought-process to balance it out. It is unfair. It is like he has been given a hole to dig, but no spade to dig it with, only puny breakable bleeding fingers.

When logics deserts him, as it seems to be doing now, he does not know what to do.

Every moment that passes by makes him feel more and more frighteningly alive. He wonders how humans deal with it, then wonders how _he_ dealt with it when he was human, then realizes again like a slap to the face that he is still human after all.

The urge to run becomes overpowering, but he can't stand up.

The food is gone. She is ordering sake for them now, enough to drown in.

The cup is tiny and cool in his long fingers.

He wonders that the alcohol doesn't taste of blood, after what these fingers have done.

xxxxx

Misaki is amazed that he is still here.

She knows he fears the questions she can ask. She wishes she could just tell him outright that though the mystery torments her, she doesn't plan on asking him if it will make him run away again. His presence beside her right now is far more valuable to her than any number of answers. It's illogical, but over the past two years, she's come somewhat to terms with the fact that humans can't be logical all the time. Sometimes they just have to follow their instincts. That is what she is doing now.

The sake is harsh, cheap and vicious on her tongue. She downs it like water, though she knows she's no good at holding her liquor. This way, when he leaves, perhaps it won't make her feel so helpless. Perhaps the alcohol will dull the edge of failure.

It spreads through her veins, making the paper lanterns shine brighter and the world lose most of its sharp edges. She feels blissfully unaffected by worry or doubt. Though she knows it is a false contentment, she is happy to take it instead of facing the prospect of watching him walk away while stone cold sober.

She raises her glass to toast him. He asks what they are toasting, eyes mild and amused, and she opens her mouth before realizing that she doesn't know. "To change," she says giddily, without the faintest clue as to why.

His eyes darken, but he raises his own glass and tips it against her own with a faint musical _clink._ "To change."

It burns her throat all the way down.

xxxxx

Hei wonders why he is still here.

She is fast slipping away from reality, cheeks flushed prettily and eyes unfocused. He knows could kill her in half a second if he so chose, considers it for one such half-second, realizes in the next that he is fairly certain he could walk away without guilt if he did. He is not a Contractor, but he has created a Contractor's soul within himself. It's almost as good-- or terrible, depending on the point of view-- as the real thing.

It is not a happy realization.

Her head lolls slightly on her neck as she turns to smile at him through her glasses.

He knows she isn't lying to him. She never really has. She has always, every time he has met her, been nothing and nobody but herself. This her, this person she is showing him more of piece by piece, is the truth. There is no conscious facade concealing her, protecting her, from his eyes.

Hei feels obscurely honoured by that.

xxxxx

"I have a question for you," she mumbles, leaning heavily against him. The glaring orange light of the streetlamps pools in her hair. It's not her best colour. "I only just remembered it. But if I ask it, you might run away, so I don't want to. What should I do?"

"I won't run away," he says, realizing only after he says it that he means it. He's so tired of running. He runs for his job, runs for his life, runs for his dream. He doesn't want to run right now. "Ask your question."

"Did you choose to coexist?" she whispers. "Did you choose to live side by side with us? Contractors and... I don't even know what to call us, now. Contractors are human too, I know, and though you're different I hate to call you abnormal. It seems unfair. Contractors and the unsigned. Is this what you wanted?"

It takes him a moment to understand what she's asking, and when he does he smiles despite himself. "It wasn't that I chose," he tells her honestly. "It was that I couldn't. I'm not really one or the other you see, so I couldn't side with either."

"I see," she says. Her weight against him is growing steadily heavier as her consciousness fails her. "I'm sorry. This isn't like me. If you want to leave me here, I'll find my way home, so don't feel obligated--"

He interrupts her gently. "It's all right," he says. "It's not a burden."

"Thank you," she whispers. Then, suddenly she stops. "Just a moment." She tightens her grip on his arm, straightens up, takes a deep breath and holds it for a moment before letting it go. Then she takes another, and another, until she has made five deep breaths in a row. When she opens her eyes again and looks at him, they are much clearer than they were. "An old trick," she explains. "I'm all right now."

Bemused, he keeps his arm around her waist in case her newfound sobriety is only a clever illusion. "I'll take you home," he offers, not entirely sure why he does it but not caring enough to question it deeply. "What's your address?"

She tells him.

The trains run all night, but not as often, so they sit on the platform together for many long minutes waiting.

The silence is companionable.

xxxxx

Misaki is mostly sober again, but the moment feels strange.

It isn't that it's unreal, or surreal, or anything like it. Quite the opposite. It's more like it's hyper-real, more true than most other moments. As if the world is absorbing her into itself until there is no boundary between herself and the truth.

Neither of them have said a word for nearly half an hour, and yet she feels just like she's coming to the end of a long, deep conversation with someone she knows very well.

She wonders if she will ever see him again after he gets her home. Somehow she thinks not, and the thought is exquisitely painful.

She _wants_ to see him again.

_That was no ordinary look you just gave him,_ Kanami says, echoing through her memory alongside a lascivious grin and a half-hidden wink.

The only thing that stops her from turning forty-five degrees to her left and pressing her lips against his just then is the cold lump of knowledge in her belly that says he would not welcome it. It would instantly shut the door on the silent rapport they have discovered over the evening, and that is the last thing she wants to do.

Instead, she tilts her head back and looks up at the sky. It is three in the morning. The light, characteristic of that strange time of day, is blue-violet and uncanny. There is a patchy overcast, but through it, she can see the scattering of false stars against the velvety darkness.

Before she can think about it, she raises her hand and points out one thirty-two degrees above the horizon, almost due west but for a handful of degrees barely north. "BK-201," she says. "That's your star. Did you know?"

He stiffens momentarily, then relaxes. "No," he answers. "I didn't."

"It's very bright," she comments.

He doesn't answer.

That's all right. She wasn't expecting one anyway.

The train comes in with a shriek of sound and light, obliterating the horizon, and they get on. He holds her up and keeps the crowds from knocking her over, one arm holding onto the iron bar overhead and the other tight around her shoulders.

Misaki has never felt safer in her life.

xxxxx

Her apartment is cold, but it is clearly hers.

He cannot help but notice the differences between this and his own bare room. There are possessions on the shelves, tasteful knick-knacks gathered over years of friendships with others and casual shopping on days off. The plates and cups are tidily organized in the cupboards, but they are not perfectly matched-- testament to years of accidental breakages and replacements. There is a blanket folded on a bookshelf near the single couch within arm's reach of an occupant. In the bedroom, there is an African violet on the windowsill, and it is alive and healthy because its owner has always been there to water it and care for it.

Hei cannot remember the last time he had a home stable enough to support plants. He has always just had a place to sleep and cook, like a semi-permanent motel room.

This is different. This place belongs to her. It has her written all over it. He can smell her in the air circulating through it.

This is a home.

She hangs her jacket on the back of a chair without looking and turns to face him. "I suppose you're leaving, then," she says, face unreadable.

He knows he should. He knows it, logically, to be the best decision, from the Contractor's mind he has built from himself. Tonight, however, he feels more human than usual, and there is another factor within him that is throwing off that equation.

"Do you want me to?" he asks softly.

Her brow furrows deeply. "Don't _you_ want to?"

He shrugs, noncommital, inwardly amazed at the decision he knows he is probably about to make. "I asked first, it's not fair to answer a question with another question."

"True enough," she says with an endearing smile, and straightens her shoulders. "Then, honestly... no. I don't want you to leave. I'm just afraid that by saying that I'll make you run again. But please, will you listen? Just this once?"

She barely waits for his nod before speaking again.

"I know you have a lot to worry about. There are people after you who give me nightmares when I think too long about what they're capable of. I'm also well aware of the fact that in fact, if not in theory, I work for them. If I were you, I'd do exactly what you have been doing-- I'd run, as far and as fast as I could. I don't even know why you're here. But," and she paused for a moment, breaking eye contact to look out the window at the glittering city-scape beyond, "I'm glad. I'm really, truly glad you're here."

The decision is made. It is easier than he thought it would be, and regret is noticeably absent. He'll ponder that later when he's alone again.

Right now, however, there is nothing more on his mind than crossing the five and a half steps between them and kissing her like any normal human man would.

There will be time for regret later.

xxxxx

When she wakes up in the morning, he is gone.

That does not surprise her. She suppresses the pang in her chest that gives her and goes about her daily routine, hoping that somewhere between brushing her teeth and washing her face, the pain will get bored and leave her alone.

It doesn't, and that doesn't surprise her either.

What does surprise her, some minutes later, is discovering a bit of paper pinned to her fridge with a tacky souvenir magnet. On it is scrawled a phone number. Nothing else. Just the number.

How utterly like him.

For a moment, the trust inherent in that small gesture takes her breath away, but somehow, there is another feeling quickly overwhelming that solemnity within her.

Misaki presses a hand to her mouth, stares at it for a while. Then she gives up and bursts into giggles, doubling over until she is leaning on her counter with tears of mirth standing in her eyes.

Somehow, she doubts she'll ever see him in her dreams again.

**XxxxxxxxxX**

**A/N:** There. Now I feel better. :)


End file.
